Inventing Anais Nin: celebrity authorship and the creation of an icon

This thesis examines the process of the construction of Anaїs Nin’s public persona (or rather personae) by herself and by the popular media in the United States from 1966 onwards, with a special focus on socio-cultural processes that contributed to the production and sedimentation of Nin’s public image. This involves, on the one hand, the analysis of Nin’s involvement in the process of self-construction and selfpromotion; on the other, the study of how various media contributed to the invention of Anaїs Nin. I also analyse how Nin’s name and persona have been used and what she has come to signify. I investigate what Nin has stood for, what sort of statements she has been brought to support, what products she has advertised, and what debates she has triggered. In order to accomplish these aims, I rely on the archival research, textual analysis, an examination and application of critical theories to position my study. As far as a critical framework is concerned, I situate my study between autobiography studies and cultural studies. In particular, I combine celebrity culture studies with those that focus on the author’s (self) representation in the literary marketplace, and I foreground gender as a vital factor in constructing a public personality.